A movie blog about what's going on in the film world by Jeff York, a writer, critic and fan.

Monday, December 26, 2016

MY FAVORITE IMAGES FROM 2016 MOVIES

It’s a yearly tradition here at The Establishing Shot to
pick the favorite images from each movie year and 2016 will be no exception. What
constitutes a favorite image? They’re the shots from films that I found to be the
most memorable. They were startling, notable, artistic, or even shocking. No
matter what the reason, here are the 10 images from this year that are still in
my head. (And yes, there will be some spoilers in the upcoming paragraphs.)

JACKIE

Director Pablo Larrain and screenwriter
Noah Oppenheim set out to tell a bolder and more intimate story about First
Lady Jacqueline Kennedy than had ever been put on a big or small screen before.
(The name of the film clues us in immediately that this is going to be more
personal.) And in a film filled with searing images of her grief in the days
and weeks after her husband President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, perhaps
none demonstrates her despair more than the unforgettable one of her removing
the aftermath of the shooting. As pictured above, it is a graphic and
uncompromising look at her victimization in Dallas that day. Not only was
Jackie (a never better Natalie Portman) splattered with her husband's blood and brain matter, but
she could have been shot as well. Then, to make matters worse, she had to clean
it off to get ready to witness LBJ’s emergency swearing in on Air Force One.
Moments earlier in the film, Larrain showed a similar shot of her adjusting her
pillbox hat for the parade through Dallas. Now, her life is destroyed and she is
forced to look presentable for the cameras. It’s one of the most devastating
images in JACKIE, one impossible to forget, and it’s my pick for the most memorable
of the year.

LA LA LAND

There are so many stunning images in Damien
Chazelle’s modern movie musical LA LA LAND that it’s hard to narrow down the
list. My favorite is one of its most witty and ethereal. The film establishes
early on that the musical numbers are fantasies, spooling out from the romantic
hopes and dreams of its characters. And on their first date together, struggling
actress Mia (Emma Stone) and headstrong jazz pianist Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) venture
to the Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles. As their romantic feelings for
each other manifest, Seb gently lifts Mia up and she starts to float towards
the ceiling like a child’s balloon. Soon he joins her for a mid-air waltz that
is as poetic as it is cheeky. I wish the very first trailer hadn’t given away
this sublime moment, but it doesn’t rob its power a smidge. Instead, the
audience is lifted along with them as we fall in love with this romantically inclined couple.

DEADPOOL

You know you’re in for something unique and
brazen from the very start of the anti-hero superhero movie DEADPOOL. To the synthesized
strains of Juice Newton’s 1981 “Angel of the Morning”, the camera moves in slow
motion, serpentining around a vicious and graphic brawl happening within an
exploding RV, frozen in mid-air. The pure choreography of this absurd, gonzo
opening is hysterical, with screaming faces, crotches being bitten, and glass
shattering everywhere, all stuck in suspended animation. But what makes it even more of a howler is that this is the opening credits sequence. Soon, brutally honest
credits will weave their way in and out. Star Ryan Reynolds is identified with the credit “God’s
perfect idiot.” The producers are labeled as “asshats.” The funniest
announcement is when the screenwriters are proclaimed as “the real heroes of
the movie.” Director Tim Miller comes
from an animation background, and indeed, his entire film is practically a
live-action cartoon, albeit an R-rated one, starting with this outrageous opener.

ZOOTOPIA

John Huston once remarked that 90%
of a film is casting. If you don’t believe the people saying the lines, you won’t
believe any of the movie. So, when the two main characters of ZOOTOPIA, police
bunny Judy Hopps and con artist fox Nick Wilde, head to the DMV to retrieve
some critical information needed in their criminal investigation, time is
precious and they need their information delivered in a hurry. Enter the clerk. He happens to be a sloth. Yep, casting. The sloth’s inability to give
them answers as quickly as they desire provides the biggest laughs in the latest animated gem
from Disney. Judy (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) grows more and more impatient while Nick (Jason
Bateman) adds to her angst and tells a time wasting joke. The sloth (Raymond S. Perci) gets it eventually, but the long time it takes for him to process it, and then react with a laugh, feels like an eternity. A hilarious, inspired eternity.

INDIGNATION

Transferring a novel to the screen is never
easy, particularly when it’s an author like Philip Roth. His descriptions of scenes and the inner thoughts of his characters are so vivid, cinema often bungles
his prose in translation (Case in point? This year’s misfire of an adaptation of Roth’s AMERICAN
PASTORAL.) Yet here, in writer/director James Schamus’ vividly detailed telling
of Roth bestseller INDIGNATION, the source material is done proud. Never has the meaning of Roth’s words been more beautifully realized onscreen. Especially potent is when protagonist Marcus (Logan Lerman) first sets his eyes on Olivia (Sarah Gadon) in
the college library. Roth spent a lot of time in his novel describing her coquettish leg swaying as it rests on her chair. Schamus shoots the
girl from Marcus’ POV and we see the young goddess through his eyes. When Olivia looks up and their eyes meet, he's a goner. And we in the audience are just as bewitched.

THE WITCH

Another film that is quite bewitching,
literally, concerns the presence of brides of the devil nestled within a puritanical Pilgrim community.
Robert Eggers delivered not only the best horror movie this year with THE
WITCH, but also has visualized some of the year’s most potent images within it. The director saves
one of his most terrifying for his final moments of the film. Up until that
time, we’ve seen a seventeenth century New England family trying to live according to the disciplines described in the
Bible. But their human frailty cannot follow the letter of God's laws, and one by one, the members
lose their faith, as well as their lives. When the remaining
teen daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) succumbs to the dark side, she does so by accepting the devil's invention to “a life lived deliciously.” She then strips naked and joins a coven of witches dancing naked near a forest
campfire. As she watches, their pure exaltation levitates them into the night air. She soon follows. It’s a
denouement as chilling as every other moment of this truly unsettling 93-minute thriller.

FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS

Sometimes a camera can merely rest on an actor’s face and be as powerful as any kinetic action onscreen. Thus, it is with
Hugh Grant’s visage and the calculating expressions he delivers as St. Clair Bayfield, the enabling husband
of FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS. When he hires young pianist Cosmé McMoon (Simon Helberg)
to accompany Florence (Meryl Streep) in her pursuit of dreams to be an operatic
singer, Clair doesn’t tell him that his wife's talent is utterly off-key and shrill. When she shrieks her
first notes, Cosmé is incredulous, but Clair tempers the tension with a sly
look that subtly suggests that he agrees with his take, but they will never let Florence
know how atrocious she really is. Grant has always
been an exquisitely droll actor, and his work her is
some of the cagiest and cleverest in his brilliant career. That’s why his face alone is one of the
most engaging images on film this year.

HELL OR HIGH WATER

Jeff Bridges plays Marcus, an old coot of a
sheriff, laconically chasing a couple of brother bandits (Chris Pine, Ben
Foster) who are robbing banks throughout present-day Texas. In HELL OR
HIGH WATER, a modern western, he's about to retire and he constantly
reminds his partner Alberto (Gil Birmingham) of that fact. Then, after almost 90 minutes of jibes,
anecdotes, and shambling police work, their pursuit suddenly takes a harrowing
turn when Alberto is shot dead. All at once, Marcus must become fully
engaged. He yells at the others joined in their pursuit to back off for fear of losing their lives. Suddenly this hayseed is a keen enforcer, terrified, yet giving 100% to the job. It’s a shocking character
reveal that plays as bold and dynamic as the narrative jolt of that sudden death in this acclaimed thriller.

ARRIVAL

About 30 minutes into ARRIVAL, Amy Adams’ linguist
Louise Banks accompanies the military personnel up into the entrance of an
alien spaceship. Their intent is to establish genuine communications with the
visitors aboard, who could be friends or foes. Director Denis Villeneuve shoots the scene above the characters, looking
down on the mile drop below them. Unexpectedly, Louise
is pulled up by Forest Whitaker’s Colonel Weber to enter the zero gravity present at the edge of the alien vessel. She's startled and terrified, as are we in the audience. The feeling of vertigo created by that image is overwhelming. I never thought I’d feel such a fear of heights watching a movie as I did last year upon seeing Robert Zemekis' THE WALK in IMAX. I was wrong. ARRIVAL did it to me again. And this time, it was merely on a regular screen. Damn.

NOCTURNAL ANIMALS

In Tom Ford’s complex psychological thriller, Amy
Adams plays Susan, a bored and frosty art gallery proprietor living in the bubble of privilege. She'd like to feel alive and connect with someone, but cannot. Her marriage is a sham, her friendships vacant. Then one day, she’s sent a book written by her ex-husband Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal). The disturbing
revenge plot in his pages revives her. Her blood really gets pumping as she realizes that Edward is writing about
their twisted relationship in his way. Can she reconnect with him and start over? Her hopes rise when Edward invites her to dinner. She dolls herself up with a killer green dress, stylish hair and full makeup. But as she
faces herself in the mirror, Susan realizes that she is a façade, far from the unfettered and honest girl Edward once knew. She dramatically, and almost violently, wipes of
her blood red lipstick, wishing that she could wipe away her wicked life along with it. Former fashionista Ford has turned into one of the most arresting filmmakers working today. He is an expert at creating images that can
make the ugly beautiful, and the beautiful ugly. And he does it from first frame to last in this challenging thriller.

Those are
the 10 favorite movie images of mine this year. What are yours? Tell me the
shots that are still lingering in your head and why. And here’s to just as
many wonderful images that hopefully await us in the new slate of cinematic offerings for 2017!

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About Me

I am a critic, writer, illustrator, host of the movie review podcast "Page 2 Screen" for the International Screenwriters Association, and proud original member of the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle. Thank you for following me, and I'll look forward to reading your thoughts in the comments section below each post.